Passion Personified

John Mohrmann can’t explain it. Was it written in the stars? Was
it fate? Was it luck? Morhmann just wrapped up his 20th season as
coach of the Priory soccer team. The weekend before Thanksgiving,
Mohrmann guided the Rebels to their second Class 2 state
championship. They finished 27-0. It’s the second time a boys
soccer team has gone unbeaten and untied in the state of Missouri.
The first time was in 2005, when Priory went 26-0. “It is hard to
believe,” Morhmann, 50, says. “It’s pretty amazing it’s happened
twice.”

Boys’ soccer has been recognized by the Missouri State High
School Activities Association as an accredited sport for 43 years.
No one, save Priory, has survived unscathed. Not Mike Villa’s
juggernaut Vianney teams of the early ’80s or Vince Drake’s St.
Thomas Aquinas dynasty of the early ’90s. Those kinds of things
just don’t happen in soccer. For Priory to go unbeaten and untied
not once, but twice, is jaw-dropping.

Then again, maybe it isn’t. Maybe it’s the byproduct of a coach
whose own work ethic and love for the game filters down to his
players.

Morhmann was a midfielder at St. Thomas Aquinas High School and
helped the team to a share of the 1977 state title when it tied
Bishop DuBourg. After three overtime periods, the game ended 2-2.
Mohrmann and Aquinas would return to the title game the next year
and lose 2-1 in overtime to Vianney. It was the first of seven
state championships the Golden Griffins would win under Villa.

Mohrmann’s play and great grades caught Princeton’s eye. He
would suit up four years for the Tigers. He majored in religion and
minored in English. He graduated in 1983 with a teaching
certificate, something that didn’t come easily. “Until I became a
parent, student teaching was the hardest thing I did in my life,”
Morhmann says. He came back to St. Louis after graduation and was
uncertain of where he was headed. As the summer began to come to an
end he heard about a job opening at Rosary High School. “I tried it
and haven’t looked back,” he says.

He dabbled in coaching his first year at Rosary, helping out
when he could. He was named the coach before his second year and
given the keys to one of the best teams in the state. “That might
have been the best team I’ve ever coached,” he says. “I think we
had 10 guys that went on and played Division I.”

Back then, the state would seed the state tournament and Rosary
was No. 1. But it would be knocked off in the quarterfinals by De
Smet. Mohrmann would coach at Rosary for four more years before
moving to Prep Seminary where he would coach for three years. He
taught one year at Cor Jesu before finally landing at Priory in
1991.

Mohrmann’s passion for the game remains as intense as ever. He
still plays as often as he can in men’s leagues around town. He
says he’ll play a couple of times a week during the winter and even
more during the summer. Morhmann says that getting lost in a soccer
match allows him to put aside all the deadlines and pressures of
the day. It’s his release.

Mohrmann spends his days teaching English at Priory. He’s
particularly tickled that he’ll be breaking out his copy of Hamlet
and going over the Bard’s revenge tragedy before too long. He sees
many similarities between teaching and coaching. It’s why he’s
still doing both after so many years. “The thing I still get a
charge out of is trying to reach kids and help them learn,” he
says. “It takes a lot to write a good paper. It takes a lot to be a
better player.”